When U.S. Justice Department officials warned state courts this week that soaring financial penalties for low-level wrongdoing might be damaging people’s lives, they could have had Mariah Robinson in mind.

Robinson, 28, of San Francisco, lost her driver’s license for failing to pay fines and surcharges of about $4,000 on a half-dozen traffic tickets. And she said the tickets weren’t even hers, but were issued to another driver who somehow got her license information and gave it to police each time.